Mystery Message (short story)

Mystery Message was a short story published in Doctor Who Annual 1978. It featured the Fourth Doctor.

	Fourth Doctor
	The Senate
	Penadron
	Doctor Who Annual 1978
	September 1977
Doctor Who annual
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Next →	A New Life

Summary

Visiting the planet Penadron, the Fourth Doctor is about to visit the Senate, but a coded message from an anonymous source allows him to realise in time that the Senate are actually malevolent, intending to kill him to extract all his knowledge from his brain.

Characters

• Fourth Doctor

Worldbuilding

• The message is written in code.

Notes

• The illustration depicts a robot-like being, similar to the K1 robot from Robot. It is not clear to which element of the narrative it corresponds; it is possible that it is intended to depict a member of the Penadronian species, which is not physically described in the narrative.
• The coded message was actually written in code and left for readers to decipher themselves, allowing the story to double as a game.

Continuity

• The Doctor's brain holds highly valuable knowledge. (TV: The Rings of Akhaten, Nightmare in Silver)